Indian Fairy Tales

by Joseph Jacobs

  XXIX. THE PIGEON AND THE CROW.

  Source.—The Lola Jataka, Fausböll, No. 274, kindly translated and slightly abridged for this book by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse.

  Remarks.—We began with an animal Jataka, and may appropriately finish with one which shows how effectively the writers of the Jatakas could represent animal folk, and how terribly moral they invariably were in their tales. I should perhaps add that the Bodhisat is not precisely the Buddha himself but a character which is on its way to becoming perfectly enlightened, and so may be called a future Buddha.

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  Endnotes

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  [1] "History of the Aesopic Fable," the introductory volume to my edition of Caxton's Fables of Esope (London, Nutt, 1889).

  [2] An admirable and full account of this literature was given by M. A. Barth in Mélusine, t. iv. No. 12, and t. v. No. 1. See also Table i. of Prof. Rhys-Davids' Birth Stories.

  [3] Finland boasts of 12,000 but most of these lie unprinted among the archives of the Helsingfors Literary Society.